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Attended a gun show this last weekend at the Education Building on the MN State Fair grounds. Saw this little girl there and well, I had to go back today and take another look. And wouldn’t you know it….she followed me home.

Yeah, this won’t be fun at all at the range.

You can’t make up stuff like this…

Muslim scientists and clerics have called for the adoption of Mecca time to replace GMT, arguing that the Saudi city is the true centre of the Earth.

Center of the earth huh??  Last time I checked the center of a globe was internal.  So Mecca is hell on earth???  That about matches what I’ve heard about it.  Either that or Muslim “scientists” and clerics haven’t advanced beyond the “earth is flat” stage.  Either one I regard as equally possible.

Of course that’s just the snarky perspective, it gets better.  They have “scientific proof”, yeah this should be good.

The call was issued at a conference held in the Gulf state of Qatar under the title: Mecca, the Centre of the Earth, Theory and Practice.

One geologist argued that unlike other longitudes, Mecca’s was in perfect alignment to magnetic north.

In perfect alignment to magnetic north??? When??? What time?? Cause I’ll fill you in on a little secret.  Magnetic north is not constant.  It changes…..DAILY.  Sure it doesn’t change much, but it does change.  It’s constantly in motion.  It’s currently in the Canadian arctic (just northwest of Greenland), and it has been drifting towards Siberia for awhile now.

So unless you pack up Mecca and move it every so often, it comes across as incredibly ignorant to claim Mecca is the only one in perfect alignment with magnetic north.  Even if it were true now, next year it probably won’t be.

Nice try guys.  Keep trying, you’ll get it.  I’ll give you a hint, bang the rocks together.

I haven’t watched wrestling in years, mostly because the plot lines starting getting obscenely ridiculous. But this is absolutely hilarious…

Bravo WWE, Bravo

Money quote is at 1:55

“Bill Clinton : I did not have illegal contact with that candidate

Today is “Earth Day” which according to global warming climate change followers is a very sacred day. According to gaian lore, it is the day when the drowned polar bears will rise from their watery graves. Good little children will be visited by the Goracle, who will leave flourescent light bulbs and carbon credits in their hemp-weaved baskets.

It is also the day when the spirit of Gaia, the earth mother is worshipped. In what I’m sure is just coincidence, she’s also the patron saint of bad science, scare tactics and propaganda.

All her followers are required to sacrifice one of their toes to her cause. No it doesn’t make sense, and yes it’s a pointless and useless gesture but those are the central tenets of the global warming climate change religion.

So on this sacred green day, before you take another breath and release more dangerous (to what is unknown) carbon into the atmosphere, please say your green prayers

Bless us, O Gore, for these thy likely renewable gifts, which we parasitic humans are about to steal from thy mother Gaia, which is probably the fault of George Bush but we digress. By the light of fluorescent light bulbs through our Goracle, we pray. Tofu.

Happy Earth Day….now if you’ll excuse me I have a couple tires I need to burn.

Well the MN Wild proved their Minnesota roots by bombing out in the first round of the playoffs again.  It’s good to see that some traditions never die.  So it’s time to look forward to next season.  Certainly changes need to be made, both out of necessity (salary cap) and to also improve the team.  So let me play GM for the day.  Good news is there is a young core that is locked into multi-year deals.

Goalies

Ok I think this is probably the one solid part of the team.  Backstrom didn’t play bad, he just didn’t have an offense to support him and defense didn’t always do their job and clear away the garbage.

Yeah, there are some things to work on, controlling the rebound and improving on shootouts, are probably top on the to-do list right now.  And Harding is a pretty capable backup in my opinion, needs some experience but that will come with time.

Defensemen

First the obvious move, trade Skoula for a used puck bag…..or assuming we can’t get that, I’m willing to accept a set of broken laces.

I’d like to keep a core of Schultz, Foster, Reitz and Burns to build a new team of blue-liners.  Keith Carney, Sean Hill and Petteri Nummelin are all unrestricted free agents and I’m inclined to let them go.  I’m not overly set on Johnsson but his contract isn’t up yet so he would work as a decent stop gap measure for now.

Obviously we need to bring in a few blue-liners to replace our castaways.  I’m not aware of any internal talent that is ready for the big league, so that means trading for something.

Forwards

First of all.  We. Need. Centers.  We need centers that can win faceoffs in the worst way.

We also need a cleanup man, Parrish was a step in the right direction.  But we need someone who can park his ass in front of the goals and get the garbage goals lucky bounces that make the difference in today’s NHL.  Yeah, they aren’t pretty but they count the same on the scoreboard.

I think we can split up the Hanson Brothers can’t we???  Simon is an unrestricted free agent, let him go.

Short on contract time are Aaron Voros, Branko Radivojevic, Todd Fedoruk, Brian Rolston, Marian Gaborik, Pavol Demitra, and Pierre-Marc Bouchard.

Radivojevic is a tough call.  He seems to be making genuine efforts but when it comes down to it, his performance is sub-par.  At worst I would call him trade fodder, at best let’s see what he’s asking for a single year deal.

Todd Fedoruk….okay he’s getting up there in years (UPDATE : wow…how sad, I just realized we’re the same age) but he’s got that rough edge I think we still need in a journeyman type player.  I’m inclined to sign him for two years if the price is right

Aaron Voros….ooooh, Aaron, why do you do this to me.  I’m still naive enough to think he can get that spark back.  I’m probably wrong, but I’d be tempted to see if he can’t be resigned for a year.

Brian Rolston has been a workhorse for us….a very cheap workhorse.  His slapshot, his work-ethic and his “See the hill, take the hill” attitude would inspire me to resign the guy.  Yeah, he’ll probably be more expensive but I think it’s worth it.

Bouchard is probably our only young talent that isn’t on a multi-year, let’s rectify that.  I’m not sure it’s really that difficult to justify this one.

Now we’re down to Gaborik and Demitra.  Which are basically a package deal, without Gaborik there is no reason for Demitra.  Personally I’m of the opinion that Gaborik needs to go.  He’s a good player yeah, but not for the price.  It’s fairly obvious he’s not happy in Minnesota, every season he’s injured for several weeks and even when he’s healthy he’s streaky.  So when it comes down to it, you get half of a season out of a really expensive talent.  Yeah, he lost alot of his bargaining power with his flop in the playoffs but I still think now is the time to get something for him in a trade.

And I’d like to point out that I wanted to trade Randy Moss after his first breakout year when we could still get something for him.  At the time it was “crazy talk”, years later we trade him for peanuts.  Do we need to put ourselves in the same bag with Gaborik??  And since he’s being traded away, do the same with Demitra.  It’s just too bad we had to lose O’Sullivan for him.

A few players in there we can lose that should be good trade fodder to meet most of our needs.

Coaching

Ok coach Lemaire is a good coach yeah, but someone needs to sit his ass down and explain to him that calling out players in the local press isn’t exactly going to inspire loyalty and hard work, just bitterness.  And the last thing we need is hockey players clinging to religion and guns on the ice.  Not to mention that anti-immigrant sentiment in sport of mostly Canadians and Europeans is a bad thing.

In addition to blocking the passage of the SAVE Act, it appears as if the Democrats are also doing their best to block further building of a fence, even the pathetic variant of it that the DHS is trying to build.

Fourteen Congressmen (all Democrats) are going to court to ask the Supreme Court to block building of the border fence because it will violate environmental laws, including the Clean Air Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act. Nevermind, that Congress explicitly gave the DHS the right to do exactly that.

Oddly enough, from their quotes they are trying to pin this “abuse of authority” on the Bush administration, which is comical. Not only has the administration gone out of it’s way to not enforce our borders, but it has repeatedly refused to use authority granted it by Congress to do so. Now when they finally begrudgingly do so, Democrats cry foul?? Unbelieveable.

The fourteen Congresscritters that were apparently booted out of the reality-based community, are as follows:

Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS)
Rep. John Dingell (D-MI)
Rep. John Conyers (D-MI)
Rep. James Oberstar (D-MN)
Rep. George Miller (D-CA)
Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY)
Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA)
Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-TX)
Rep. Solomon Ortiz (D-TX)
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA)
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-CA)
Rep. Susan Davis (D-CA)
Rep. Raul M. Grijalva (D-AZ)
Rep. Yvette D. Clarke (D-NY)

Good to see that Minnesota is also respresented in this group that has suddenly found a love for the environment now that it’s a useful tool to stop the border fence.

The Rankings Are As Follows:

• Triple “I Whine Like A Child” A : 5
• NightWriter : 4
• Dan S : 4
• Lloyd :4
• Mall Diva : 3
• jroosh : 2
• Harvey : 2
• Bogus Doug : 2
• Aelfheld : 2
• Sola-Man : 2
• Bobby_B : 2
• Drunkguy : 2
• kingdavid : 1
• tommy g : 1
• spurringirl : 1

For this contest you get to make up your own answers!! That’s right…just pretend you’re a real life journalist and just make shit up. Post answers in the comments. They will be judged on creativity, plausibility and humor.

Question : For what purpose has this super hi-tech tank been designed???

Note : Unfortunately it is necessary to notify participants that causing the judge (me) to vomit will result in both automatic disqualification and loss of points.

Previous contests

It often falls on bloggers and non-traditional media to get out the word that Iraq isn’t all just death and violence.  Sure it’s not rainbows and puppies either, but there are good things happening.  And lately the good news has been a fairly constant stream of events.

Captain Ed, of Hot Air, shares some of the most recent good news.

Suddenly, the oil companies want to invest in Iraq, and the Iraqis welcome them.  The enthusiasm for Iraqi investment comes as the US has mostly pacified the west and Iraq has taken control of its south for the first time since the British began retreating there.  The south is significant, as not only does it contain massive oil fields but it also has the ports through which Iraq exports its crude.  Basra and Umm Qasr are now in the hands of the Baghdad government, not Moqtada al-Sadr, and the companies can conduct business on a normal basis.

These companies would not put their money and personnel where the investments could not be secured.  Having 120 companies apply for prequalification shows confidence in the stability of Iraq that seems to have escaped the media and some of our own politicians here in the US, who seem more interested in portraying Iraq as a continuing disaster.  Contributing to that stability is an upcoming revenue-sharing agreement, which Maliki promised would soon gain approval at a conference in Belgium, which would give all Iraqis a stake in maintaining security.

Ok he’s right, that is good news and it’s worth hearing.  However, I think Capt Ed is trying too hard.  He doesn’t really have to go through all this just to demonstrate that the country is rapidly moving towards a peaceful existence.

We can skip all this debate about oil production and private investment, and skip right to this story.

Iraqis often complain about the problems in their country and the government’s lack of obvious progress in solving them.

But as drivers in traffic-clogged Baghdad learned this week, Iraqi officials are taking action in one area: strict enforcement of a seat belt law.

Later this month, traffic police officers all over Iraq will start issuing tickets to any scofflaw who drives without buckling up. Violators will be fined 15,000 dinars — about $12.50.

Yeah, you read that right.  Iraqi police are giving out tickets for seat belt violations.  If they have time to mess around with trivial crap like that, what does that say about the state of the country??

I intentionally did not watch the Democratic debate because….well they’ve gotten boring. Apparently I missed what might have actually been a good one, since it turned into a one-sided cat fight. And surprise surprise, the Cult of Obama is upset that their Messiah was made to look the fool. How dare the media ask tough questions about the candidate’s dumbass mistakes from the past couple weeks.

Oddly enough, I agree with them. It always bugs me when debates are less about issues and policy and more about the tabloid topics and identity politics.

However, here’s the problem with the Democratic endorsement process so far. Both have been engaged in a race to the left for so long that they both have the exact same position on every damn issue.
There is no substantive difference between the two.

The only thing left that separates the two is identity politics and bone-headed political mistakes. Surely liberals realize this, they know the differences already, they just don’t want to hear them. And sure as hell they don’t want them pointed out in such a public manner. However, it’s hardly ABC’s fault that the nomination is going to one of two very very flawed candidates.

But try to explain that to liberal activists….instead their venting has become increasingly irrational in frustration.  To the point that they’re willing to squelch free speech because ABC dared to disagree with them, so dammit we should pull their license.

And then we also have liberals threatening armed revolution if Obama doesn’t win.  Huh, so his candidate gets smacked around a little, and he’s threatening armed revolution.

Wow….

I guess Obama was right…

….when people are bitter they DO turn to guns.

I stand corrected.

Many months ago, I was enjoying an evening with some friends of mine, in the riverside home of one of their parents. And as it commonly does with this group the topic eventually came to politics. At this time the Republican nomination was definitely up for grabs…in fact I don’t even think Fred Thompson was in the race yet.

My friend’s father expressed that he rather hoped Newt would jump into the race because he was the only one that represented conservative ideals. I hated to pop his bubble, but knowing he global warming swindle annoyed him, I had to say something. I pointed out that even Newt had drank the Gore-Aid. He couldn’t believe it and you could see the disappointment in his face even before he expressed it.

Today I think conservatives everywhere are making the same face at the news that President Bush is going to surrender to the global warming conman, lead by the Prophet Goracle. Despite all credible evidence to the contrary, apparently Bush is planning on following Gore, by leading this country straight into a rotting pile of tofu.

Is it any wonder that Republicans at all levels, are having problems raising money?? Is it any wonder that Republican ranks have failed to swell in the face of liberal stupidity? Is it any wonder that conservatives have failed to embrace the Republican Party in general so far this election??

Perhaps is because every time they do, they are betrayed by it’s leaders again and again??

We trusted that the Republican Party would be fiscally responsible. Instead we got rampant spending and a worsening culture of earmarks.

We trusted the Republican Party to keep our country secure. Instead they refuse to secure our own borders and in fact lead the effort to reward lawlessness.

We trust the Republican Party to act ethically. Instead we get the stupid scandals out of many Republicans as we get out of the Democrats.

We trust the Republican Party to push the principals of personal responsibility. Instead we get massive taxpayer-funded bailouts every time the smallest thing goes wrong.

We trusted the Republican Party to at least behave in a competent manner. Instead we have a party acting as if one hand doesn’t know what the other hand is doing.

Now all we ask is that the Republican Party not intentionally destroy our economy by buying into faulty propaganda, disguised as “science” and pursue policies that are guaranteed not to work even if the science was accurate. Instead we get the Goracle in Republican clothing.

If the Republican Party wants to know why it has issues, it need look no further than the mirrors in the head offices.